August 07, 2015

On St. Mary’s Road, riding through the flatness of the Marsh, I can see what at first glance appears to be a graveyard filled with gleaming mausoleums in the distance. Only when I get closer do I realise it is the faces of a line of caravans in the Dymcurch Caravan Park peeking between regularly spaced dwarf trees. Some people would no doubt suggest that there is not much of a difference, but I although the thought of ever having to holiday in such a place sends a middle-aged and middle-class chill hurtling down my spine I simultaneously applaud the community minded democratisation of the countryside that they enable. I promptly pedal on in my glorious, self-imposed isolation.

August 05, 2015

There is something strange and special about this place. Keith, who has painstakingly reconstructed the cottage we look across to from our veranda is incredulous when we say we have come here from Exeter. But it really is a magical escape and filled with marvellous contradictions. I mean, a desert on a marsh, in the shadow of a nuclear power station. You couldn’t make it up.

This is the first time I have ever ridden the Military Road into Rye, but already it is a favourite. To the left, the canal that was meant to be a barrier to Napoleon’s planned invasion of England, to the right glimpses of wheat laden fields through a fine line of trees eventually giving way to an impressive array of pretty houses no doubt infused with the spirit of Mapp and Lucia. How positively divine.

August 02, 2015

It is nearly a year since I was here last, and the memory of a single ride in gale force conditions still haunts me: a tail wind so mighty I could barely spin my top gear any faster and a subsequent headwind so fierce that it took a gargantuan effort just to stay still. Today though the wind appears more benign, and I ride out through the flat wilderness to Camber, then on to Rye and out towards Winchelsea Beach. With only the vaguest notion of where I am and where I am heading I’m shocked suddenly by the road veering straight up ahead of me. A sign says ‘Battery Hill’ which I assume is reference to some historic placement of guns on the clifftop, but which could equally be a comment on the battering my body takes as it heaves its way ungainly to the summit. Bikers in leathers astride heritage motorcycles assembled in the lay-by near the top nod in sympathy or in appreciation of my effort, or both, or neither.